December 20th saw the annual Canby Animal Meet and this year the competitive animals showed up in force. How competitive was it? Three of the defending champs from last year competed and were unable to win their titles back as new challengers took the coveted Canby Animal Meet Gargoyle Trophy!
2015 Canby Animal Gargoyles
Just to refresh your memory, this meet is different than the standard meet. There are 3 Animal categories and each category is divided by men and women. No age group divisions—all ages go for it together by gender. Each Animal category does an I.M., a Fly, and a distance Free. The Sprint category does the shorter, the Animal does the middle distance, and the Grand does the long distance of each event. These folks are the true animals and are heard growling in the water after each event. Not all swimmers do the Animal categories, they pick and choose their favorite events, but you have to do the specific Animal events to win the Gargoyle Trophy.
The most competitive event was the men’s Grand Animal where Robbert and defending champ Matt Miller were close and going for it hard in all 3 events with Robbert edging Matt out by only about 2.6 seconds in the total time of the 3 events!
For those who follow my events closely, I beat all my entry times, which were my times from last year, and maintained my lock on last place in the Sprint Animal category for like the 5th or 6th year in a row. Domination! See you all at Chehalem, January 30th!
This year’s champs were, for the Sprint Animal: Amanda Metz and Adam Arzner.
Amanda Metz – 2015 Sprint Animal
Adam Arzner – 2015 Sprint Animal
The middle Animal was: Emily Melina and Matthew Marceau.
Matthew Marceau – 2015 Middle Animal
Emily Melina – 2015 Middle Animal
The Grand Animals were: Mattie Fowler and Robbert Van Andel.
Robbert Van Andel – 2015 Grand Animal
Mattie Folwer – 2015 Grand Animal